


the garden of eden is no place for a wolf

by alynshir



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Pre-Relationship, Second Person, Solas thinks about things, Stream of Consciousness, ignorance, knowledge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-19 01:04:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3590484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alynshir/pseuds/alynshir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which wolves do not like hunts they cannot have, and in which elven apostates do not like questions they cannot answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i. the wolf starts his hunt

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Dragon Age.

It occurs to you that you do not know her name. 

Her first name, that is. You know the name of her clan that she goes by, but to know the clan is to know many, and not to know an individual. She is certainly that, you think, an individual. A singular entity, one with the power to twist the world to her whim. This whim, you could not puzzle out if you were to try. And try, you have.

You find yourself quite unsure of what to make of her, and that grates on your nerves more than you would like it to. You are so very unused to this feeling of being left in the dark - you have always sought out and taken the knowledge you desired, and had very rarely been forced to wait. Even when you had been made to endure, it was always for what felt like a beat of a hummingbird's wings. This...this you must learn in due time, and at her whim, and you find yourself hating that. You hate it, this feeling of having to wait for her to deign to speak to you. If she knew -

But this is very disparaging of you. You realise this. You wonder, though, should your haughtiness not be allowed in the realm of your own mind?

You decide to compile a list within your mind of what you know, so you know better what to seek out. Perhaps then it will not seem like so much of a waste of time to have to wait for her to tell you. If you can find the blanks in your proverbial mosaic to she who feels like your own personal enigma and possibly color them with other swabs of paint, other people's words...yes, you think this to be a good idea.

You summon her visage to mind. It is altogether a strange image, although not a displeasing one. You have seen many different threads of women in the tapestry of your life, but she does not seem to fit into the mold of any of them. She is taller than most of her people - she is almost taller than you, and she is considerably stronger than most of the mortals you have encountered in your days. Physically it is evident; she swings a sword as if it were nothing but an extra appendage and her limbs are laden with muscle that could not come from naught. However, the strength you speak of, the strength you observe, is something altogether different - it is an inner quiet about her, an unshakability that fascinates you to no end. 

You must find out what is the cause for this strength. Why is she so? Surely it is not because of the mark on her left hand, the one that you notice she favors over her right only slightly. If anything, you think it would cause chaos in a person. Not her. She seems untouched by its mayhem. You cannot understand why. You must understand. You must know.

You continue with your image of her. She wears such heavy armor - it is not garish and decadent like that of those with lions on their shields, nor is it of those who she calls her people. It is simple, it is strong, it is perhaps less customised to her form than it should be, what with her high standings. It is not ugly, by any means, but it is not fitting of someone of her rank. You are sure that the enchanter who looks down her nose is at least mildly irritated with it, and this, although petty, leaves you greatly amused. This leads you to wonder, though, why your mystery of a leader does not wear something befitting her role. It is a small curiosity - perhaps it is only her preference - but it lingers in the back of your mind as if it should be remembered for a later date, so that is where you leave it to take root.

The sword she wears at her hip is simple as well, and barely worth thinking about, but the other item at her hip is one that interests you. It is a simple flute, one you have heard referred to as an ocarina. You have never seen her remove it from her hip, let alone play it, but she carries it everywhere alongside her. You have no idea why this is, and it frustrates you because this makes so little sense. Why would one have an instrument that they do not play? It seems to you like a waste of time and resources to let an instrument that has never sung its song, sit and gather cracks in its voice. You pause for a moment, though, and you realise that the ocarina is not a shiny ornamental piece. No, now that you think on it, you remember that it is the opposite. It is carved and soft and has little fine-painted vines entwined all along the elder wood. It is not a masterwork by trade but by its matter of creation - it was made with true care beyond how much gold someone would pay for it. This, however, only does more to pique your curiosity. It was made with a heart laid bare upon the carving blade, so what does it mean to her that she carries it with her always but never lays a finger on it? Did she create it herself, a symbol of something you also cannot understand Perhaps was it inherited or passed down? A father, a mother, a brother or sister? Or was it a gift from a lover, once upon a time?

This thought leaves a sour taste in your mouth, and you resist the urge to spit it out as if it were leaves steeped in water. 

You think about her as you last saw her - that is to say, yesterday, precisely at noon. You had wondered after the incident if she had timed it as such, so exact it had been. She had stood silhouetted in sunlight; you remember thinking this strange. You had recalled that she very rarely relished the sun, as most people seemed to do. She did not seem averse to it, but its intensity on her in this second seemed strange. 

(Perhaps you are overthinking it, but it never hurts to wonder.)

She did not say much in that brief moment. She never does, and this makes you wonder. Should the one single person who can save the world from destruction be so quiet? She does not say much, only answers questions when asked. This grinds on your nerves more than you would readily admit to anyone in the entire world, because does she not have any questions herself? Is she not even slightly curious about the new world around her, about who she is to be, about what she is to do, about those who stand behind her to whatever end? You cannot fathom how one so unsure of what is yet to come does not investigate! How can one go about life that way?

You find yourself genuinely angered. This surprises you only slightly; although you had been attempting compilation of a simple list of things to find out, one thought has lead you to topics less traveled in the yellow woods that is your mind. Silence peturbs you, truly. In moderation it is good, of course, but to be so silent is to omit, to keep information locked away in statements unspoken and questions unasked. And that is the root of the poison ivy that itches at you today. That is the fact that burns your flesh that was once godly with flecks of deep scalding, like liquid flame raining. The part of your soul that thirsts to know all, especially that which is kept from you, is rabid with this yearning, this need to know. It is in your nature, after all, for picking locked doors and stepping over lines drawn in the sand is part of who you will always be.

"Solas."

The word - the name - is not a question, not what you seek from the low voice of she who leaves you hanging, hanging like a common criminal.

"I wished to speak with you."

Again, not a question. She is behind you, completely unaware to the wolf within you yearning to claw free and demand, take, know. You can nearly feel her elfroot eyes on the back of your neck.

"Inquisitor."

You respond in kind, sparring statement for statement. You do not turn to face her for a moment.

"Are you preoccupied?"

A question. At last. It is not a large question, nor even a decent one. But it is a question, it is a trail that you can track to more worthwhile quarry. And so the hunt begins.


	2. ii. in which the wolf gives up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: I used google translate for any Antivan present in this fic.
> 
> I do not own Dragon Age.

Her name is Felisa. You know her name, this time, her real name, her individual name that says she is a person and not a clan. You have heard it off of her lips, after an embarrassingly long time of knowing her. And when you say knowing her, you mean knowing. You do not mean acquainted with, you do not mean friendly. You know her. You know her more than you thought you would need to. More than you thought you would want to. More than you think perhaps you should have allowed yourself to.

She is Felisa.

Felisa Aldonza Lavellan, first daughter to the craftsmaster of the clan Lavellan that roams the balmy forests of Antiva. You know this because she told you, but you also know this because of the calluses on her hands - calluses in places where warrior skin does not grow, like the inner sides of her fourth fingers where she has held styluses and tiny blades more suited to a chevalier mouse.

The ocarina she carries close was a gift from her father, and you remember her telling you the tale with few words and a little smile that did not reach her eyes.

_"Per la canzone della mia vita," she had said, the words slipping off of her tongue like silk woven from flame. "Farle sapere della musica nelle notti oscure."_

_She had moved her fingers over a miniscule inscription, tiny words etched on a vine painted with the colors of a father's heart._

_"He wished for me to have music to brighten my quiet, even when he was not there. He meant for when he was no longer there to comfort me, for when he had passed on. I do not think he imagined that I would need it while he still breathed."_

This is also how you discovered she fears darkness. It is not darkness of the mind, however - Felisa Lavellan does not fear corruption, she fears the nighttime without stars. You know this also because she told you, and because when shadows fall and hope has fled towards lighter shores you notice that she hums to fill the quiet.

Most of what you learn of her makes itself known to you after she tells you, and this fascinates you.

You learn that her mother died when she was very small, and you afterwards see the look of a young girl in her elfroot eyes when she looks to the revered mother who smiles at you when you pass even when you do not deign to look to her. You learn that she always dreamed of becoming a knight of the Emerald Graves, and you see her shoulders straighten even further when she steps foot amongst those trees that guard the bones of those who had been named once. You learn that she has always harboured a desire to have a family of her own, and after this you notice how she lets the little ones scamper all over her, and how she lets them play with her golden brown hair and weave whatever they find on the ground into it.

You imagine her with a child - she, who you would not have prior thought to be the mothering sort, she who seeks solace and fits best with a sword and a shield - and for some reason, now you can see it perfectly as if fog wiped from glass. She, kneeling in front of a child and offering the hilt of a wooden sword to their eager hands. She, standing in front of a child with her shield raised and her stance strong...you falter in a moment of weakness, of yearning, and for a second, you see yourself - or what she thinks is you - summoning a flicker of flame in your palm and causing an overjoyed smile with missing teeth to spread across the child's face. The child looks at you and looks up at their mother with eyes that shine like hers and everything looks...

You stop yourself there. No. You cannot indulge these thoughts. You cannot, you cannot. They are the variety that will not be able to pass. You realising that you actually want these images to be reality is a splash of cold water to a sleeping fool's face, and for once, you think you needed to be woken up and brought back to reality. These images are your forbidden fruit, and for once, the wolf knows not to pursue this tainted hunt. You can never be with her as you wish to, as you wonder if she wishes to; it will only end in hurt.

At least, that seems to be the tale you keep telling yourself, doesn't it?

"Solas," she says, breaking you out of your thoughts. She is looking at you with elfroot eyes and an amused expression, something you have been seeing more and more as of late. You resist the urge to cringe at the false name, you resist the urge to tell her your real one. _No_ , you tell yourself. _No. You cannot do it now. She is happy now. Do not ruin it._

"You are thinking," she observes. "I can nearly see the clockwork in your head." The oddly phrased, sunny-shore lilted sentence only makes her more wondrous, and you hate it. You suddenly wish you could return to your place of frustrated ignorance in regards to this elf, this mortal, this Felisa Aldonza Lavellan. You know too much and she has her tendrils wrapped around your heart and you cannot find it in you to burn yourself free.

"I am sorry," you apologise.

She shakes her head, shrugging her shoulders. "I did not mean for you to be sorry. I simply wished to know what it was you were thinking like an angry clock about."

"You," you answer, and it isn't a lie, exactly. Although your train of thought had most recently been about yourself.

"What about me?" she asks. You had not pinned her to be the curious type, even after some-odd months of meeting, learning, knowing her. "It is not often I see you look so puzzled. What about me is so perplexing?"

Your answer to her question is a question in itself, and not the one you truly want to ask. But it is something you do not know. You wish you could say your internal mosiac is nearly complete with the colors of her veins, the undersides of her wrists, the color of the strength in her limbs and eyes and heart, the color of her mind and soul and the color of her name. As it is, there is one burning wonder that has left her lips colorless like the wind.

"I simply wonder why you are so quiet," you pose. "As you are the Inquisitor, I would expect you to be more...opinionated."

"I am," she responds, her lips curving up slightly.

"You ask no questions," you continue. She doesn't seem fazed by these curiosities of yours, and you wonder if you are the first person to ask her why she does not speak as much as most.

"Because I need no answers," she says, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. You do not, cannot understand it at all.

"Do you care so little about the world around you?" you ask. It leaves your tongue sour, but you hadn't intended it as such. She does not seem to feel the unintentional barbs, and you think this is for the best.

"I do not demand answers of a world that does not demand answers of me," she says, and in that moment you think she is possibly the most confusing quarry you and the wolf have ever pursued.

"If I am to know something of a person, they will tell me," she clarified. "I do not seek knowledge that is not presented to me in due course."

"You are Inquisitor, commander of many, she who closed the Breach," you say, growing more perplexed with each beat of a hummingbird's heart. "You could do anything, know anything, be anyone. Do you wish to?"

Her answer will be yes. It must be. She is certainly a mystery when you thought there were none left for you to discover, she is certainly puzzling, but she is a mortal. She is mortal, and no matter what, every mortal you have ever met yearns for that one moment where they can leave their scar on the world's ever-shedding skin. You have never met a mortal who is satisfied - with themselves, with others, with the world.

"No."

Of course she said ye-

She said no.

She said _no_.

"No?"

"You wish to know why I do not wish to change myself or the world, Solas, and I give you this: I am content. I am content with me. I do not wish to change me. If others do, they may make wishes on every star in the sky but it will not come to pass unless I wish to change me. As for the world, I will do for the people what will save them, but I do not do it to change, I do it to preserve. The world will change if it wishes to with years to come, like a river changes mountains to canyons. I will watch it change. I will not interfere with the course of that river. I do not wish to be swept away."

The wolf returns to his den, jaws closed around air. He has discovered his prey is not prey. It - she - is unlike anything the wolf has encountered in its many seasons, and the wolf's hunt cannot continue.

She is his full moon, and he cannot do much else but stop and stare. When she is hidden by future stormclouds, he will howl at the loss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> intended translation: For the song of my life, let her know music on the dark nights.


End file.
